


don't let go

by tkreyesevandiaz



Series: hold me tight [2]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Caring Evan "Buck" Buckley, Eddie Diaz Needs a Hug (9-1-1 TV), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Eddie Diaz, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, LITERALLY, M/M, POV Evan "Buck" Buckley, Pre-Relationship, Same Fic Different POV, Worried Evan "Buck" Buckley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:33:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24303715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tkreyesevandiaz/pseuds/tkreyesevandiaz
Summary: It scares him at first.Eddie’s standing at his door, soaked to the bone and looking sounbelievablylost. His hair and clothes are plastered to his body, and he’s heaving, like he’d run a marathon.The second he sees the familiar form on his security footage, he’s opening the door without a second thought, questions and worries swirling around in his mind.The events ofhold me tightas told from Buck's perspective
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Series: hold me tight [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1754533
Comments: 23
Kudos: 200





	don't let go

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so proud of these titles xD 
> 
> There's something said about posting things at certain times for maximum viewership but it's cool. I need to get this out xD too impatient to wait :D
> 
> Buck's POV came on a whim, honestly. I've never written two different POVs of the same scene, that too within two days of one another, so this was interesting and fun.
> 
> Just a note, some descriptions may be different from the fic that was written in Eddie's POV, and that's because during episodes of dissociation like this, it's hard to keep track of actions and reactions. Most of these descriptions have come from my personal experience with PTSD, so please, please be kind.
> 
> This ended up a little longer than the first fic, I hope you all enjoy it!
> 
> **TW: Some descriptors of anxiety, mild dissociation implied**

It scares him at first.

Eddie’s standing at his door, soaked to the bone and looking so _unbelievably_ lost. His hair and clothes are plastered to his body, and he’s heaving, like he’d run a marathon.

The second he sees the familiar form on his security footage, he’s opening the door without a second thought, questions and worries swirling around in his mind.

Buck doesn’t know what to expect. For a minute, he wants to panic, too. Did something happen to Christopher? Is Abuela okay? 

That’s before he remembers that Christopher’s at summer camp, and Eddie would’ve been alone at home.

“Eddie?”

“Buck.” When Eddie says his name in that low whisper, almost as if he can’t believe Buck would be _here_ , his heart clenches painfully in his chest. It feels significant, the way his name drops from Eddie’s lips like a prayer. Still, he takes a closer look at his friend, recognizing that bare-thread look on his face and the stark vulnerability on his face. 

It’s how he looks after a particularly bad nightmare.

The first priority though, is to get Eddie out of his wet clothes, and into the warmth of the apartment. So he puts a gentle hand under his best friend’s elbow to walk him inside. “You’re soaking wet, Eddie. What happened?”

Eddie doesn’t answer him. By the look on the older man’s face as he stares down at the floor, realizations about the night flicker through his mind, realizations that Buck isn’t privy to.

It doesn’t bother him; he knows better than most how naked one feels when their fears are suddenly right in front of them, all of them lining up in what seems like a death sentence. It’s not as if Buck can’t draw the conclusions; he recognizes the signs from his own thousand sorts of nightmares. He knows how random it can be, and how easy it is to lose yourself in the aftermath.

Right now, the most important thing on his mind is that Eddie’s at his apartment at 2 in the morning, probably having run here for comfort. The mere fact that Eddie felt safe enough to be here instead of his own home is a startling discovery that crawls up his spine. Buck thinks to himself that there’s some truth in the fact that home is a person, not a place.

“Are you with me, sweetheart?” Buck says when he senses Eddie drifting away again. He can see the spark of awareness at the endearment, which relaxes him just a smidgen.

The first time Buck had witnessed one of Eddie’s nightmares had been, ironically, at Buck’s apartment. They’d come back from a horrible call, one that had triggered Eddie seven ways to Sunday. They had fallen asleep together on the couch, only to be woken by Eddie’s whimpers and screams.

It’d been the scariest moment of Buck’s life, because he hadn’t been able to _do_ anything. He was watching Eddie suffer something he had no hope of understanding, no hope of seeing for himself. 

Somehow working on instinct, he’d started up a steady stream of random conversation, in which he’d dropped the word ‘darling’ by accident. Eddie had stopped where he was rocking, repeating the term of endearment over and over again. 

Now, Buck uses the same tactic to keep him in the present. He can see Eddie precariously balanced on the edge of aware and unaware, and knows he’s one breath away from dissociating.

“I...I don’t know,” Eddie whispers, slowly looking around the apartment as if he’s not quite sure how or why he ended up here. Buck supposes it’s true; the man doesn’t seem like he recognizes his own need to be here, something that only makes Buck worry more.

He leads Eddie to the table, gently pushing him into the seat Eddie fights him tooth and nail for, every single time. He’s hoping that the familiar chair will help draw him out of the aftershocks of his nightmare, and he’s proven right when Eddie says, “Yeah. Yeah, I-I’m with you.”

Buck moves quickly to grab the warmest pair of clothes he can find and throws them into the dryer. As he walks back to the kitchen to pull out a glass, he keeps an eye on Eddie, almost overfilling the glass as he observes him closely. 

From this angle, Buck can only see the side profile of Eddie’s exhausted form. The older man lifts an arm to trace some of the dents and divots in the polished wood, the gesture far too robotic to be self-aware. He seems to be forming soundless words with his mouth as he traces a linear scratch with a nail, over and over again.

He knows what Eddie’s doing, having done it multiple times himself. There isn’t a single thing in his entire apartment that _doesn’t_ remind him of Eddie and Christopher. He has a few origami figurines on his bedside table made by Christopher and a framed picture of the three of them right next to the paper models; they help him remember where he is when he wakes up gasping for breath, help him remember that everything's alright.

It's not just his bedroom with the Diaz touch. The TV table is covered in suction marks from the plastic Buck usually lays down when he and Chris get working on a school project involving glue and glitter. The drawer on the far-side of his closet is filled with Eddie’s clothes and spare uniform. The couch turns into a spare bed for Christopher, and the downstairs bathroom is equipped to let him shower on his own. Sometimes, there’s a lingering scent of Eddie’s preferred soap in his bathroom, and other times, he can peer into his cabinets to find all of Christopher’s favourite snacks.

It’s a lot at times, to know that despite the two boys closest to his heart not living in this space, they still manage to make it their own. Buck isn’t, and probably never will be, ready to let go of that hot feeling, as overwhelming as it is.

Too focused on his mission, Buck slips into the seat next to Eddie where he normally sits and holds the cup out. He only regrets the decision when his friend jumps; it probably would’ve been smarter to sit in front of him.

His friend takes the cup quietly, slowly drinking it with trembling fingers. This level of...willingness...to do anything without a single word knocks Buck off-kilter, because he’d never imagined a world where he’d get to see that side of Eddie Diaz. Buck doesn't like it, but he powers on as Eddie drinks. Buck scans the rest of his body, just to make sure that Eddie’s not hurt anywhere.

The bottom of his sweatpants are dredged in mud, as are his shoes. His dark hair is plastered to his forehead, now drying in random cowlicks. Coupled with his widened, glazed eyes, Eddie looks at least five years younger and so unnervingly vulnerable. But there’s no blood or bruising as far as Buck can see, and that’s enough for him right now.

Eddie’s slipping again as he stares at the empty cup, his fingers twitching against his lap as his eyes go hazy. Buck hesitates in touching him for only a second, but when Eddie lifts adrift eyes to look at him pleadingly, the breath leaves Buck’s lungs in one exhale. 

He doesn’t know what Eddie’s pleading for, doesn’t know how to help his best friend come back to himself. There’s nothing he can do but leave his body language open, to let Eddie take everything he needs.

It’s the thing Buck struggles with the most; he doesn’t know when to quit, doesn’t know how to stop _helping_ people. Sometimes, it’s hard for him to recognize that the best thing he can do is just _be_ there for them. And Buck knows that the reason behind that is because when _he_ needed someone to push, someone to show him that they cared enough to stay, no one did. 

Buck would rather die before letting _anyone_ he loves feel like that.

Eddie’s no exception to that rule. But with his best friend, Buck knows him intricately, knows how his PTSD manifests at times. “Are you ready to tell me what happened?”

This sound of his voice brings another hint of awareness to Eddie’s eyes, even as his gaze darts all around him. It’s wary, not how someone who thought they were safe would act. “I think...I had a nightmare. And I ran here because...because I needed to get to you."

So he _did_ run here. But he still can’t figure out why Eddie would _need_ to get to _him_ , why he would be desperate enough to cover the distance between their places on foot. It still doesn’t make sense, but he doesn’t push the matter. Because the truth is, he doesn’t need to know what happened to help Eddie. Drawing a slow breath in, Buck reaches out, stilling Eddie’s restless gaze with one hand cupping his jaw, thumb moving idly on the sharp angle of the bone.

He’s not sure what’s written over his face, what Eddie sees. He’s not in control of any of it; there isn’t any part of him that can hide how much he loves Eddie, and for once, he doesn’t care if Eddie knows. 

All he’s really paying attention to is that Eddie’s shoulders are slowly relaxing, and his hands aren’t trembling as much anymore. The other man’s gaze moves again, but this time, just to slowly log his surroundings rather than search for an invisible enemy. Eddie must interpret the angles of Buck’s loft far more different than he does, but deep down, Buck knows he sees it as a representation of this family unit they’ve built between the three of them. 

Just like he does.

“I’m going to go grab you a towel and some warm clothes, okay? Just give me a minute.” He presses the words into Eddie’s stubble with a firm touch, only moving when Eddie gives a short nod.

The dryer’s going in full force when Buck retreats back to the laundry room, and he notes with satisfaction that the clothes are warm enough to hopefully prevent Eddie from falling sick. The _Buckley_ printed across his most-loved hoodie stops him in place. It’s a piece of his college years, that shockingly still fits all these years later.

He thinks about how comforting the familiar clothing is to him. As much as he used to love it, he’s now more aware of the fact that the clothes he’s wearing right now _are_ Eddie’s. He didn’t need that security around him today, thankfully enough, but he’d worn them on a whim. As he walks back out to Eddie, he can only hope that the hoodie does the same for him. 

He can sense Eddie’s eyes on him the second he comes into view, lingering on his heart, as if he can’t quite believe it’s still beating. Clearly, something had happened to him in Eddie’s nightmares.

Not for the first time, he wonders if all of his near-death experiences have done that to the people around him. To Bobby, Hen, Chimney. To Christopher and Eddie. Buck’s regret only deepens at that, but he pushes past it to help Eddie up from the chair.

His skin is jarringly cold under the shirt, and as Buck tugs the fabric over his friend’s head, he makes another sweep of Eddie’ sodden skin. He breathes a little easier when he doesn’t find any smudges of black and blue on him.

There’s a big part of him that _needs_ to take care of Eddie. Having the man stand here, indifferent under Buck’s hands but leaning into it nonetheless, Buck only thinks of all the times Eddie’s buried his needs for everyone around him.

The second Buck pulls the sweatpants up his hips, Eddie’s collapsing back into the chair, like his strings have been cut. He wraps himself further into the hoodie, looking unbearably small under the thick fabric. 

Buck takes the wet shoes and socks off, replacing them with a warm pair. Before Eddie’s hair can drip anymore, he grabs the towel and gently rubs his head, trying to squeeze out all the water from without jostling him.

“Buck.” The sound of Eddie’s quiet voice makes Buck pause and look down at his friend. His heart squeezes at the dark circles under Eddie’s worn-down eyes. Those eyes, on any normal day, spoke to Buck of stability, of safety, of warmth and of a thousand other things Buck was too afraid to reach for. 

Of _home_.

He stays still as Eddie lifts a hand, one finger coming to trail along his birthmark and the curve of his eyebrow, before following the bridge of his nose to reach the corner of his mouth. The touch is to ground him, Buck _knows_ it, but he still can’t help but kneel in front of him. Eddie doesn't let go even as Buck moves, mapping the slight stubble on his jaw with his fingers. Eddie looks at him sadly, an unsettling expression Buck isn’t familiar with. Still, there’s a note of reverence and awe to his touch as well.

Buck sets a hand on Eddie’s knee, squeezing lightly as he speaks. “What can I do to help, Eddie?”

He’s out of any other ideas. Despite his earlier conflict with not wanting to push, Buck can sense that Eddie wants to ask him for something. He can have anything he wants, no matter how scary that thought will be in the morning.

When Eddie asks him for a simple hug in the smallest voice he's ever heard, Buck’s heart all but shatters completely. He doesn’t hesitate to pull Eddie towards him, and the second he does, his best friend fractures into so many little pieces that Buck doesn’t know where to start putting him back together.

Eddie falls into him easily, pressing his face against Buck’s chest where his heart pounds against his sternum as both of them crowd together on the ground. He feels the pressure burn behind his own eyes as his best friend cries and cries and cries.

It’s not something Buck knows of. The most he’d ever seen Eddie come close to this sort of breakdown was a thin sheen of tears after the tsunami, at the VA. Buck has never seen Eddie in so many pieces before, and he doubts if he even _has_ the ability to glue him back together.

It’s then that he takes stock of how exactly Eddie’s holding him. Both of his hands are balled tightly in Buck’s shirt, forehead pressed against his collarbone. His dark hair is tickling the thin skin of Buck’s throat but he’s breathing steadier, slow and deep. 

“I’m here, Eddie. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.” He repeats the words over and over, smoothing a hand over the letters of his name stretched across Eddie’s back. Eddie shudders but starts to relax, probably giving in to the lure of his exhaustion.

He keeps his grip tight even as Eddie calms. It’s an illusion more for his benefit than Eddie’s, if he’s honest. He’s still not quite sure Eddie’s completely aware of what’s happening, but his arms around his best friend make Buck feel like he can hold Eddie together just like this. If nothing else, he can do _this_.

Eddie taps his gratitude in the form of hastily-drawn letters on Buck's shirt, and the gesture warms him all over. As Buck shifts their position to pull them closer together, he thinks to himself that there’s no way he’s going to let go.

So he doesn’t.

He doesn’t let go.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it!! I do love these boys :D 
> 
> The original prompt list can be found [here](https://zeethebooknerd.tumblr.com/post/618398552326062080/prompt-list), and my inbox is always open for Buddie xD (it might take me a bit but I'll get there eventually xD)
> 
> Kudos and Comments make my day, so thank you to everyone who leaves them!
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr at [zeethebooknerd](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/zeethebooknerd) or on Twitter at [tkreyesevandiaz](https://twitter.com/tkreyesevandiaz).


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